Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Velib is Paris free bike network. There are about 20 000 bikes available in the City that you can take at a station like this one and leave at any station you want. You only have to subscribe for 1 day (1 euro) 1 week or one year (that's my subscription). Then the bike is free for 30 minutes which gives time to easily go from one point to another. If you need more time you just need to park you bike, wait a few minutes and take another bike for again 30 minutes. If you want to know more about Velib you can go on the official Velib website.

5 comments:

If the empty rack is an indication, these look to be very popular. And is it actually safe to ride on the streets with the Paris drivers we've heard about? If velibs are allowed on the quays, it would be a beautiful ride.

Yes there're very popular and of course riding in the city is more dangerous but they've build many separate paths for bikes and it's really getting better. The quays are open to bikes and pedestrian every sundays and for 3 complete weeks during the summer ("Paris Plage" is the name of this period)

It's true that they did not think there would be so many stolen and damaged bike but it's the firts time this is implemented in a Capital City and the succes is enormous. More than 78000 bike rentals each day and already more than 17 millions rentals since it stared 1 year and a half ago. So compared to these figures, 9000 damaged bikes are not that big though there should be less of course. Anyway it's a great idea.